It was first seeded by the progenitor fleet that swept across this region nearly 2600 years ago and with the rise of All Unity of Man as a galactic federation in the current epoch, AUM refreshed the population with suitable refugees from other systems, promising them sovereignty and prosperity. This became a valuable frontier planet to AUM's reclamation plan.
Rhea, the planet's first city, was at the very center of the terminator line where the climate was most stable. Ephistome III’s extreme temperature gradient across the planet meant disastrously powerful winds and turbulent weather events. Rhea took advantage of the natural landscape around it to shield itself from the razor winds. It was circular in design, city structures built sturdily and close to the ground, wider than they were tall.
Rhea lay eerily still, half of it engulfed in darkness. No ships were arriving at or departing from the spaceport. This was an odd sight for an industrial city built around one of the most reliable power plants humanity ever invented.
A solitary speck of light glinted between two cylindrical mega buildings- a small airlifter vectoring outwards from the central ring. Strapped to the pilot seat sat a woman with brown hair and teary eyes. Her eyes were bloodshot from hours of crying, trails of tears still wet on her cheeks. The name tag on her dark blue engineer uniform read "Aegis"
One structure rose monolithic against the steel sky behind her. The Dome Reactor, a gigantic power plant that facilitated made the planet habitable. It was the lifeline that allowed humans to expand on such oppressive conditions. The dome's gigantic hexagonal planar faces pulsated slowly like a living creature. The terraforming process involving dome reactors was more magic than science since the Final Empire collapsed. For a frontier colony, survival was more important than knowledge, and they had no choice but to rely on the unknown beast at the center of their city, an exercise more in faith than in science.
Aegis steered her stolen airlifter towards the sprawling expanse of buildings ahead. An error message flashed on the HUD each time she passed a flight radar.
> Warning!
- unauthorized flight plan
She only had a few minutes left. She was already flagged by the city's automated safety system as a manual airlifter when she placed her hands on the controls. Manual piloting over population centers was strictly forbidden. Luckily for her, she stole this airlifter from a military depot and that meant it was allowed special privileges when breaking laws.
As for the initial crime of stealing it, she could only pray for the system not to catch up to her. If it categorized this as attempted terrorism, she could very well get vaporized before she reached her destination. She swerved, flipped, and turned over buildings, under bridges, and through alleyway gaps, weaving a path as low to the ground as possible. Before long, she saw her target. The Illuvium Sanctum. An old cathedral of her faith.
"Forgive me!" the words left her lips as she aimed her airlifter at the 21st floor and accelerated.
The crash shook her and the entire building, She knew the aim was off at the moment of impact when the reinforced plates of her military airlifter met a 300-year-old concrete beam at 200 kmph. It would’ve taken so much less to crush a civilian airlifter like a bug. This airlifter was smart enough to deploy predictive shielding, which absorbed most of the impact. It bounced off the cracked concrete and veered to the right, slamming hard against the glass she intended to hit. After the crash, the airlifter entered safe mode and locked away all its functions. It took nearly a minute for Aegis to come back to herself. This was time that she didn't have. Her head still throbbing, she freed herself from the pilot seat, kicked the emergency hatch open, and wandered out with her only weapon strapped to her shoulder, hauling its power cell with all the strength she could muster.
In addition to the airlifter, she had also stolen another piece of gear that evening - An industrial melter beam emitter. She modified it to autonomously target any human based on crude parameters like thermal profile, sound, heartbeat. The emitter came mounted on its own mechanical arm. She managed to strap it to herself with a makeshift harness she put together with the airlifter's safety belts.
Her crude weapon system sprang to action on the first detection. A quick green flash of light pierced the corner wall in front of her and someone screamed behind it before being cut off by a second flash of light. She turned the corner to see a soldier hunched on the floor, two neat holes cut through his armor and helmet.
*thank god, it's working*
She didn't expect for this contraption to work this well. Before she came to terms with her first murder, three more flashes illuminated the dark corridor in separate directions as she dragged her feet by the corpse. Three people in the rooms to her left and right fell, their screams shortly cut off by a series of flashes. This wasn't a smart weapon system. It was just faster and it was put together with no safety features. She was half anticipating it to twist back and cut her in half, that would be a fitting end for her crimes here. She heaved the rapidly draining power cell with all her might. It was too hot to carry bare-handed but she had no choice. She didn't have long.
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She ran as fast as she could towards the door marked 98. Her vision blurred with fresh tears and she barely kept herself on her feet. In her rush to reach the door, she rounded a corner to face two soldiers. One placed a hole through her side before the Melter cut three holes into his chest and a finisher to his face. She survived the second soldier’s barrage only by sheer luck and the melter beam recalibrated, cutting a merciless series of holes and crude lines through him.
She dropped the power cell and grabbed her side, trying to stop the bleeding. This was the final stretch. She was almost at the door, this weapon wasn't needed anymore. She limped along the corridor, leaving a thick trail of blood behind her. She used her biometrics to open the door. This was her life's work. She had opened this door for 12 years. This was her maintenance lab, one of the most sophisticated facilities on the planet. Complex machinery decorated all four walls and at the center lay what she came here for.
She stumbled towards the rectangular tank filled with pale orange liquid. She screamed in pain as she accidentally put weight on her pierced side. There was no time to try to stop the bleeding. She wiped the glass with blood-soaked hands and breathed heavily, gazing at the girl in the tank. As she did, her eyes softened, her expression one of love, care, and reverence. This was her life's work, the most sacred work of her faith.
A girl slept in the stasis pod, drowned in thick yellow fluid.
She looked half the age of Aegis. Her sleek body was form-perfected, pale composite skin stretched over a frame built with Materium artistry that was impossible to replicate in the current epoch. Her eyes lay open, pupils dilated and irises colorless. Black lines weaved patterns on her featureless skin, tiny trails of bubbles trailing from the dark gaps between. This was entity 98, her Red Priestess. That name came from the red accents customary of their Red Sect aesthetics. This one had red hair and red lips. This was a relic from deep history, forged by lost technology in the golden age of the final empire, about 4000 years ago. She was suspended in this pod for regular maintenance upon her arrival 12 years ago. In her lifetime, Aegis only saw two Red Priestesses. She was 5 years old when she saw the first one, and that fascination drove her to not only see the second one but also work on her sacred flesh. She thought she was the most blessed.
_Was she blessed?_
That lifelong assumption was ruthlessly tested today, as the same blessed life led her to this exact moment. It was time to wake the red priestess up, against the rules of her faith and the city laws regarding relics. Aegis leaned against the tank and slid down, plugging a tether from the nearest console to the brain dive port at the back of her neck.
Even though she spent more than a decade here, she didn't have a way to open this pod. No one did. She used precision ultrasonics to mend and repair the priestess for 12 years. Touching the priestess was strictly prohibited. She woke only when she wished to be woken. That was set for 29 years from now. Aegis looked forward to that day her whole life, but that was time she didn't have anymore. She worked here long enough to figure out the only way to wake her up.
She had to make the pod open by itself. Physical damage wouldn’t work. This pod was an extension of the entity inside and it had its own shields and machine awareness. She knew the only way to force the pod to open by itself. She could use the maintenance privilege she was given, but she'd have to breach the terms of the contract.
Aegis felt something churning inside her lungs when the first sparks of electric signals reached her brain. She coughed it out in a disgusted frenzy. It came out thick and viscous, a dirty byproduct from the ghastly thing that ate her from within. She didn't have long. She had to make a recording before she lost more of herself to it.
Once it was done, she sighed in relief and tossed the small wearable camera where her priestess could easily see it. Then she initiated the connection.
> POD 98:
- subject name: Liera
- designation: L-98
- current status: stasis
- duration: 105120H:46M:34S
A loud beep echoed in the dark maintenance lab. Text flashed on the console.
> POD 98 WARNING:
- containment compromised!
- N8D fluid pressure suboptimal
- power critically low
- 7% secondary
- 3H:43M:45S of stasis remaining
> POD 98: reporting to administrator...(30s)
- transmission failed
- facility offline
The sanctum was cut off from the grid. This stasis pod was on backup power, possibly since the day before. The facility staff was supposed to handle the delivery of fuel cells in this scenario but the city descended to chaos before anyone reported to work. Circumstances being dire as they are, her priestess would’ve woken up without her intervention in a few hours.
That was time no one had, Hours from now would be entirely too late.
> POD 98: manual maintenance run initiated
- personnel: Aegis [#9213-1]
- system authorized
"The best I could do, was gettin' here on time" She panted, her mind drifting to delirium. "...didn't even get to say goodbye to my boys...oh my sweet... I'm so sorry," She mumbled. "My priestess... It's the end of the world..., I'm so sorry," she wept fresh tears.
> POD 98: initializing firmware update
- applying patch: v.189913#c
> reboot initiated...
- error: 189/456 fragment missing
- error: 189/441 fragment missing
> reboot initiated...
- reboot failed
> POD 98: CRITICAL MALFUNCTION!
> containment policy revoked for entity 98
- container hardware failure
Aegis closed her eyes. She knew what came next.
> POD 98: TAMPERING DETECTED!
- deliberate sabotage of containment is a [CLASS A] criminal offense!
- force ejecting maintenance personnel: AEGIS
The tether at the back of her neck detached with a spark. Her body spasmed as the surge passed through her. She fell forward, hitting her head on the metal grate as smoke came out from the back of her neck. She was in no condition to stand up. Between the blood loss from the hole in her side and the parasite that ate her from within. The light was fading from her eyes faster with each dazed blink.
"You won't take me!" She whispered through her clenched teeth as she grabbed an injector from her inner pocket with a trembling hand. This was the third thing she stole, a high concentration sedative.
the thought echoed in her head with hatred, drowning her blinding pain. She couldn't let this loathsome parasite claim her.
She held the injector between her and the floor and used the deadweight of her torso to push the needle into her chest. That was the last pain she had to endure.
Within seconds, her eyes rolled back, and she slumped over, drifting into a painless void.